Covering FSU football and Seminoles sports at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL: "Walter Dix looks at the sprints differently from most of his competition.
'Sometimes, the fastest guy doesn't win,' he said at the U.S. track team's Olympic training camp.
'But definitely,' he said, 'the strongest guy always wins.'"
Nobody is coming to the Olympics saying Dix is faster than Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell or Usain Bolt. The numbers simply aren't there.
Stronger? Dix thinks that's possible. And if he's right, maybe he'll be wearing a medal or two when these games are over.
Although Gay has a chance at one individual sprint medal in Beijing, in the 100, Dix is the only American going for two. Dix begins the chase Friday morning (this evening EDT) in the 100-meter prelims. The 100 finals are Saturday evening (Saturday morning EDT).
Gay injured his hamstring at Olympic trials last month in Eugene, Ore., knocking himself out of the 200. Dix gutted his way through and finished in the top three in both events — eight heats over nine days.
Underdog or not, that made him the only American with the chance to become the first U.S. runner to win medals in both Olympic sprints since Carl Lewis in 1988.
"I know a lot of people aren't looking at me," Dix said. "The competitors who compete against me, I don't think they're overlooking me. But I think a lot of the media is hyping the competition. That allows me to maybe sneak in there and make things happen."
It might be a stretch to say Dix is sneaking in anywhere.
OK, so he's not Gay, Powell or Bolt, the 100-meter world record holder who's now saying he's 80 percent likely to go for the double Dix already has committed to.
But here's what Dix is: The 200-meter champion at last month's Olympic trials. Winner of six NCAA championships, including the last three in the 200. A grizzled veteran already at age 22 with lots of experience in winning big events that involve multiple heats. That is, by the way, what the Olympics are about, and also something Bolt — one of his main competitors — isn't nearly as experienced in.
"He's a marvelous competitor," said Dix's coach, Terry Long. "He has demonstrated he can go through that."
It was the love of competition, not money, that allowed Dix to fashion one of the more interesting "turning-pro" stories among this year's crop of Olympic athletes.
Nobody would have blamed him for leaving school after 2007, but with the chance to win a third straight national championship in the 200, and a chance to lead the Seminoles to their third straight team title, Dix decided to stick around, get his degree and see what would happen.
He got the championship, helped the Seminoles get another one, too, and with his degree secure, conventional wisdom had it that he would sign a quick endorsement deal and grab whatever cash he could when NCAAs were over in June.
He wasn't so quick to sign.
"I just flipped the script," he said. "I didn't sign, because I didn't plan on getting injured and I still had work to do. My thing was to make the team first. The opportunity to make the Olympic team comes around once in a lifetime, and that's what I did."
He made it twice, in fact, and as a double qualifier, he had little problem securing a deal with Nike and Oakley sunglasses. A better deal than if he'd jumped at the first offer.
"I made a good amount of money," he said, without divulging the details. "I'm eating."
Now, he can focus again on winning.
His personal best of 19.69 in the 200 is more impressive than his top time of 9.93 in the 100, but he concedes he likes the 100 better.
"It's what I started off with," he said.
The 100 will kick off the Olympics, with qualifying heats starting Aug. 15. He'll face Gay, Powell and, most likely, Bolt, in the marquee sprint of the Olympics.
But it won't be over when those medals are awarded.
If all goes to plan, he'll run not in four heats over the span of the games, the way most sprinters do these days, but in eight, the way only a special few do anymore.
Could he wind up with a medal or two?
"Hey, the sun came up today, didn't it?" said men's head coach Bubba Thornton. "Well, hey, that's called athletic sport. There's been a lot of picks in a lot of venues where the underdog won. And he's no underdog."
Well, maybe kind of an underdog. One that track fans will be seeing a lot of over the next few weeks.
"You watch a lot of people go out there and they run the rounds and they don't win but they still have the world record," Dix said. "To me, it has to do with toughness, both mentally and physically."
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